Offended by a Crucifix

For Missourians, Schnucks grocery store is a well known stop for affordable victuals. (I shop there every couple weeks.) Tom Collora, a capable manager of two Schnucks stores in Saint Louis, has inadvertently and unintentionally caused some controversy (if that's the right word) for daring to display a crucifix at the customer service desk. And just like clockwork, the anti-Catholic enzymes in the modern day jacobins have been activated as a result. Here's a link to the whole story. Some choice highlights:

Some customers are reacting angrily to the new display. Lori Weinstock, 40, a health care professional from University City, was shopping a few weeks ago when, after paying, she looked up to see the crucifix.

"It startled me. It seemed so out of place," Weinstock, who is Jewish, said. She was startled enough to write a letter that was published last week in the newspaper the Jewish Light.

"It would have been equally startling if it had been a Star of David or an emblem of another religion," Weinstock said. "It's grocery shopping, and it should be welcoming to all and exclude none."

That the display is a crucifix — an image of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross — and not just a plain cross, is of particular concern to some of Schnucks' Jewish customers. The cross bearing Christ's body has become a symbol of the Catholic Church, according to Ronald Modras, a theology professor at St. Louis University, while a cross without it has become a Protestant symbol.

"The cross is an ambiguous symbol which can mean one thing to one group and another to a different group," Modras said. "And for Jewish people (a crucifix) can mean, 'You are a Christ killer.'"

Unbelievable. When you read things like this you have to wonder on what planet some people are living, let alone country. The idiocy on display here, on account of these dyspeptic head waggers, is breathtaking. What about defamation against Catholics? How about a cover story on that syndrome? There's certainly no paucity of case studies in that field, across the fruited plane. And how about this useful idiot of a theology professor at Saint Louis University? I bet the investigative reporter had to search far and wide for a disgruntled, self-loathing theology professor at a Jesuit university, as these are nearly impossible to come by nowadays (chime in dripping sarcasm). And let's talk about the nauseating superabundance of glitzy and ubiquitous pictures of President Obama? Is anyone else tired of seeing these? See, to the left, Obama is Zeus himself, reigning supreme in their worldly pantheon, head of all the secular gods, so one ought not hold his breath for any complaints of overexposure on that front. But dare to put up a crucifix and Catholic heads should roll. Give me a break!

I lived in Italy for several years and over there (as in Spain, Poland, Greece and elsewhere), it is customary to detect a crucifix, an icon, or picture of a saint in just about every type of mom and pop store, and even in the larger ones. Folks across the pond, with the exception of the elites in France, aren't so hyper-reactionary over wonky notions of separation of church and state. Translation: They're not so uptight. Such a witness is a marvelous reflection of a cohesive culture that is, at the same time, pluralistic, welcoming to all beliefs and not exclusive in the least. No one there is "bothered" by such displays and if they are, that's their problem and not the store owner's.

These philistine curmudgeons hounding Collora and Schnucks had better find something better to do with their time and loosen up a bit in the process. Translation: Get a life!